Saturday, July 23, 2016

Our Brand Is Crisis Indeed


There are many ways to win over the electorate to your side of the election. One of the most effective ways is to paint that electorate as being stuck in the middle of a crisis that only you can resolve. In the movie, Our Brand Is Crisis, two American campaign managers face off against each other to elect the new President in Bolivia. Using the strategy of painting Bolivia as a nation in crisis, then adding promises to fix things, one side ekes out a win over the more positive, hopeful, reform oriented campaign. Then the President elect embarks on a course opposite his own campaign promises, and crisis ensues. Donald Trump paints America as a nation in crisis. Yes, we have issues and problems. Racial tension is rampant. Socio-economic inequality is pervasive. Threats from overseas and home grown terrorists are a constant underpinning of our everyday life. Violence is rampant on our streets. But the economy is healthy, unemployment is lower than it has been in decades, wage equality has become a major concern of at least one of the major political parties, and America is still looked upon as the leader of the free world. Crisis is too strong a word for what is going on here, yet our job is crisis, says Trump, and he is very good at his job. At the same time, the very issues that plague Americans across the nation are issues whose resolution has been blocked time and again by an obstinate Congress dominated by the very people Donald Trump represents. I fear his election will not fix a crisis he is making up, but create one that he might just dictate.

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